Death To All Flesh Excerpt

Happy New Year everyone. As promised, here is a text-only sample of ‘Death To All Flesh.’

It’s a Lovecraftian/Joseph Conrad type of gothic horror tale, about a soldier recuperating from the Great War who takes a mining job overseas
on a dark and forbidding continent and soon lives to regret it.

This is from the early part of the story, when the narrator, his wife, and their two small children are just about to begin their journey via ship.

The supernatural elements start to creep in near the end of the excerpt.

from “Death To All Flesh.”

***

***

The bluff of the ship
Is acrid and steep,

Its varnish slickened with
Guttering dilapidation.

As we are boarded,

It bucks from its moorings
In its slip at the dock,

As if straining
To break free from all catchings
And restraints.

With our small children
Now bundled and secured

The banner and mast
Of the great ship
Are unfurled,

It disengages from the dock,

And we are departed.

***

Our ship carries little freight
Or cargo, merely passengers.

There is a small party
Of doubtful men taking travel
With us.

Preternaturally
Saturnine and distant,
They keep to themselves,
And never once
Leave their cabins.

The boy,
Surprisingly,
Also does not
Agree with
The ship’s
Atmosphere

And so spends
The journey
Locked dolorously
Indoors with my wife.

The ship’s determination,
Fitful at the start, eventually
Becomes settled

And we encounter
Little difficulty
From the weather

During our navigation across
The corridor of the sea.

There is another party
Worthy of note who share in
The transaction of this voyage.

A small disposition of travelers,
Equally divided among the sexes

Appear each night in the dining
Commons after the sun has set.

They are strangely complected,
Seemingly of a mixed race,

And engage to maintain
Camaraderie on ship in regards
To my person.

Though we are unable to relate
By means of proper interaction,
By native speech or intellect,